The Contra MC — a US-made, steel, high-pivot Enduro bike — is an ambitious project by any measure, and designing and prototyping the bike is just half the battle. So we brought Evan Turpen, the driving force behind Contra, back on the show to talk about refining a prototype design and knowing when to stop tinkering; what goes into bringing a design to production and the challenges that arise from that; what he’s learned along the way; and a whole lot more. TOPICS & TIMES: The MC (2:55) Design refinement & knowing when to stop tweaking (4:29) Ramping up to production (17:26) Tooling and streamlining the process (32:14) UDH compatibility & the SRAM Transmission (45:36) The Beyond Racing team & the DH bike prototypes (52:49) Future refinements (1:04:15) Finishing & cosmetics (1:12:27) RELATED LINKS: Ep.118: Contra Bikes on Building a Bike From Scratch Ep.176: Anna Newkirk and Abby Hogie on Beyond Racing, the Contra DH Bike, & More BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Contra Bikes on Making the MC a Reality

Bikes &amp; Big Ideas is the weekly podcast from BLISTER that's dedicated to the most interesting conversations and ideas from the bike world — and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Health & Fitness

Simon welcomes guest co-host Mike Ferrentino to go over a busy, weird month in the bike world. Of course, they have to talk about what happened to Kona, which leads to a discussion about the negative effect Venture capital and investment companies seem to have on the bike industry. But there’s also fun stuff going on with companies like Gates, and Mike places a bet with eating his microphone as the stakes. Plus they get into the incredible start to the XC World Cup season for U.S. athletes, the new Canyon lightweight eMTB, the scourge of poison oak, and, naturally, some discussion of zombies. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: What's going on with Kona? (0:41) Enve is being sold again (9:25) Rapha closed their U.S. office (14:42) The Mountain Bike capital of the world (18:03) Gate’s 100k belt drive prize & Microphone eating (29:00) Recap of the first two XC World Cups (34:46) New Yeti ASR (42:22) XC bike amnesia (52:03) Canyon Neuron:ONfly first ride (56:04) Poison Oak (1:03:30) 28 Days Later sequel and Zombies (1:04:47) OUR OTHER PODCASTS Blister Cinematic CRAFTED GEAR:30 Blister Podcast Off The Couch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reviewing the News w/ Mike Ferrentino, April 2024

The Norco Factory Team has a new DH race bike, and the story of its development is an interesting one. So we sat down with engineers Adrian Ward and Kirk McDowall to hear their take on the goals and design intent of the bike; what they learned from the development of the existing Enduro bike, the Range (and its modified DH version); the original test mule for the new race bike; working with Greg Minnaar to continue the bike’s development; and a whole lot more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: Introducing Adrian and Kirk (2:03) Origins of the DH bike project (3:59) Racing DH on the Range (6:35) The next steps (13:27) Kirk’s testing (17:28) Building “the fastest race bike” (22:53) The design of the bike (28:41) Wheel sizes & going MX (32:33) Suspension layout (41:07) Greg Minnaar & reconsidering 29’’ wheels (46:52) Future development (56:26) OUR OTHER PODCASTS Blister Cinematic CRAFTED GEAR:30 Blister Podcast Off The Couch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Norco's New DH Race Bike

We’ve been testing a massive assortment of new bikes and other gear, and David Golay and Zack Henderson sat down to chat about a whole bunch of them, including the high-pivot Norco Optic and Sight, the new Specialized Epic Evo, the newly-mulleted Yeti SB165, and more.
RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: Yeti SB165 (1:29) Norco Sight & Optic (8:46) Kavenz VHP 16 V7 (22:43) Rocky Mountain Instinct (31:52) Rocky Mountain Altitude (38:33) Ibis HD6 (45:46) Specialized Epic Evo (53:18) SRAM Maven brakes (58:58) OUR OTHER PODCASTS Blister Cinematic CRAFTED GEAR:30 Blister Podcast Off The Couch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reviewer Reports: So Many New Bikes

March was an interesting month for bike news. There was a dispute at Crankworx Rotorua which resulted in the men not competing in the finals, Scott is having crazy management drama, there are a bunch of interesting new lightweight eMTBs, and Simon had a recent trip to ride in Tuscany. In our third installment of Reviewing The News, Ryan and Simon get into all of this and more. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: Simon’s recent trip to Italy (1:50) Riding eGravel bikes in Tuscany (4:03) Are gravel bikes just reincarnated 30-year-old mountain bikes? (4:48) John Tomac’s drop-bar riding prowess (7:39) How did we ride without dropper posts? (7:54) Slow eBikes in Europe (10:38) The Slopestyle strike (20:40) First-ever women’s slopestyle event at Crankworx (27:32) Scott drama (32:50) The year of the lightweight E-bikes (38:04) Norco Fluid VLT (39:58) Mondraker Dune (50:11) Short-travel high-pivot bikes (53:24) Old brakes vs. new brakes (1:01:51) OUR OTHER PODCASTS Blister Cinematic CRAFTED GEAR:30 Blister Podcast Off The Couch 
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reviewing the News w/ Ryan Palmer, March 2024

Racing World Cup DH isn’t easy under any circumstances, but doing so after a spinal cord injury — and needing to relearn how to walk, much less ride — is something else entirely. Brook Macdonald pulled it off, but he’s also struggled with bike setup, burnout, and more over the last couple of seasons. For 2024, though, he’s got a new team, a new bike, and a renewed hunger to race — we sat down to hear all about it. RELATED LINKS: BLISTER+ Membership BLISTER+ Real World Testimonials Blister Labs This Week’s Gear Giveaway Blister Mountain Bike Buyer’s Guide TOPICS & TIMES: Getting a fresh start for 2024 (2:24) Coming back from breaking his back in 2019 (4:09) What does (and doesn’t) work in a DH race bike (18:06) Moving to Forbidden (23:40) Hardline Tasmania (26:58) Losing weight (35:44) The evolution of DH racing (39:04) Changing race tracks (50:05) Brook’s 2024 goals (54:42) OUR OTHER PODCASTS Blister Cinematic CRAFTED GEAR:30 Blister Podcast Off The Couch Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Contra Bikes on Making the MC a Reality

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